FTA: <i>Suleman Nagdi, from the Federation of Muslim Organisations, said: "For people, this is touching at the very tenet of their faith, the very heart of their faith. There needs to be a criminal procedure against the company," he said. "At least it would bring some confidence into the community."</i>

No, I think civil procedure would be just fine in this instance. Violating the tenets of a religion really doesn't strike me as ever being a criminal matter.

Tatsuma:People who do these kinds of things (usually for profits) are the worst type of people.

It's hard to imagine how this could be a mistake. It's easy to imagine how this was done to increase profit. And knowing the meat was going to be labeled halal, it's also easy to imagine this being done out of hate.

legion_of_doo:I respect other traditions, though. in reality, anyway, and not necessarily on the internet. I wouldn't serve meat to a vegetarian, nor pork to a Jew or Muslim. just a respect thing.

Amazing how that concept is lost on so many farkers. I bet more than a few of those saying "It's a stupid tradition anyhow" would be up in arms had they been putting beef into black bean burgers.

It doesn't matter why they don't want to eat pork (delicious, wonderful, pork), all that matters is they don't want to eat it, they paid someone to serve a more expensive meat that didn't contain it, and that someone served pork labeled as lamb.

It happens everywhere and that's why I'm very suspicious of where my food comes from.

It's a worldwide problem, and it makes you wonder what ELSE is in there. Horse meat and pork may have religious or social meaning to some, but as far as a health concern meat is meat. Neither horse nor pork will kill you. But if you aren't getting exactly what's advertised, it raises SERIOUS questions about the food supply chain in the world.

Actually kosher slaughter is a lot more humane than stunning. The blade is extremely sharp, and done in one swift motion. Basically all the arteries that feed blood to the brain are cut, and the animal loses consciousness almost instantly (1 to 3 seconds) and the rest is all nerves and automatic responses. The animal does not suffer that way

Alphakronik:As an ex-Chef, rubbing pork on the meals of people who don't eat it yet complain and send back their dishes on a regular basis.

One patron ( a muslim) of the University Club in Portland, Oregon even sent back a note for me saying it was the tastiest burger he had ever had.

I love sending people to hell without their knowledge.

(BTW, in actual Halal theory, people who follow the rules aren't even allowed to eat food that has been prepared on the same surface as pork. That shiat never happens).

At no point in time were you ever a "chef" and you have forever lost any right to call yourself one, experience aside. You were a glorified line cook and a piece of shiat, and an embarassment to the human race, and I think most every Farker agrees.

I respect other traditions, though. in reality, anyway, and not necessarily on the internet. I wouldn't serve meat to a vegetarian, nor pork to a Jew or Muslim. just a respect thing.

Yep.

I'm Jewish, but like 85%+ of Jews in America, I don't keep kosher. I'm not religious, either.

That said, anytime we've invited any other Jews to our house for dinner, we ask if they keep kosher and to what extent that they do. Sometimes it's as simple as, "No shellfish, but everything else is fine." Sometimes it's "We don't mix meat and milk, but no need for separate utensils or dishes." Many times, our Jewish friends maintain ZERO dietary restrictions.

Regardless of the level of dietary restriction (which may be none at all, it just depends on the person), we respect it. Because respecting their dietary restrictions is part of respecting the person.

give me doughnuts:And in response to the situation in the article: Fark 'em if they can't take a joke. If you want to keep kosher, or halal, bring your lunch from home.

Ditto for organic, vegan, gluten-free, unpasteurized, etc. etc.

Can an infidel kitchen even make halal food? Public schools can't do kosher and shouldn't even try--the past history of every implement and surface in the kitchen would be important, the re-koshering can only be done by an observant jew, and lastly, there's the whole hornet's nest of which kosher authorities different jews recognize. Far better to just say "The cafeteria is treyf" and be done with it. Is halal any better?

rebelyell2006:iwatts: Tatsuma: People who do these kinds of things (usually for profits) are the worst type of people.

Because the people who ate the burgers got sick? Were endangered in any way?

The lambburgers were not actually lambburgers. Which is fraud if it was intentional.

Yeah..... I get that part.

Personally, I'd reserve the "worst type of people" label for those who harm people. Such as those that knowingly serve e-coli tainted burgers. Burgers that cause no harm, other than violate some sort of Islamic or Judaic religious custom that actually predates both religions (ancient Egypt)? No. Not the "worst".

farkeruk:Suleman Nagdi, from the Federation of Muslim Organisations, said: "For people, this is touching at the very tenet of their faith, the very heart of their faith. There needs to be a criminal procedure against the company," he said. "At least it would bring some confidence into the community."

What I'd love to ask this guy is why a God cares about us eating pork? I can grasp the concept of a god that exists that judges our moral behaviour. You murder someone or fark your neighbour's wife, yeah, I can see how a god might see that as wrong, in a way that helping someone look for a lost dog isn't.

But what's wrong with pigs, as opposed to sheep or chickens? It's all a bit farking arbitrary for a superbeing, isn't it?

Pigs will eat all sorts of crap and can carry a ton of diseases and parasites. Same basic reason bats, mice, shellfish, etc are banned in holy texts. There were valid medical/scientific reasons for avoiding them at the time so they worked them into the religion for the sake of not drying. Time passed, we understood diseases better, quality control was imposed, and tada, no need for ancient dietary restrictions. Just take the common wisdom and morality of the era, make it absolute, and stick one or more personas behind it and you've got every religion. If you don't think people will heed the advice, you throw in a list of punishments.

Short answer: http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/trichinellosis/ It's pretty obvious that the religious prohibitions came from someone or someones (more likely) who either didn't understand the need to cook meats all the way through and weren't arsed enough to do better than come up with a new superstition.

Coming on a Bicycle:Why? Because they insult your invisible sky monster and the stuff he or she supposedly wrote up as a set of rules? Sure, it's a bit screwy of them, but they serve otherwise healthy food.

So it's alright to give product animals to vegans, because fark them and their stupid choices?

Nattering Nabob:There is a scientific basis. Clean meats are at the bottom of the food chain and don't carry as many diseases. Beef, lamb, goat, etc can be cooked to a much lower temp since they don't and have a MUCH lower risk of making people sick

But none of these religions forbid eating chicken, despite chicken carrying salmonella that is far more likely to make you sick than pork.

Suleman Nagdi, from the Federation of Muslim Organisations, said: "For people, this is touching at the very tenet of their faith, the very heart of their faith. There needs to be a criminal procedure against the company," he said. "At least it would bring some confidence into the community."

What I'd love to ask this guy is why a God cares about us eating pork? I can grasp the concept of a god that exists that judges our moral behaviour. You murder someone or fark your neighbour's wife, yeah, I can see how a god might see that as wrong, in a way that helping someone look for a lost dog isn't.

But what's wrong with pigs, as opposed to sheep or chickens? It's all a bit farking arbitrary for a superbeing, isn't it?

School lunches taught me that textured soy protein used as a filler in chili and hot dogs and hamburgers, etc. will cause me to go into anaphylactic shock. School lunches also taught me how to use an epipen. Good days. Good days.

If it was hatred, they'd just stick in a tiny, tiny amount. Something barely detectable that they'd be able to say was an error if they got caught. But until then, they'd be stickin' it to the Moose Limbs without anyone knowing.

Cubicle Jockey:Wolves don't get ticks from the deer they eat. They get them from the grass they brush against.Lions don't get trypanasomes from eating wildebeast, they get them from the tsetse flies that bite lions.

There's more parasites out there, and some do come from prey animals, such as Toxoplasma gondii. And the bio accumulation of toxins has been around for a long time.

We eat predator fish because they're the big and available ones, and fish is alien enough from us that we generally don't have to worry about their parasites.

"For people, this is touching at the very tenet of their faith, the very heart of their faith."

If the most important, most sacred part of this religion, that which defines it above all else, which represents a believer's faith to the world, the faith to the believer themselves, is the lens through which the world is described to them, and if in fact the very heart of their faith is "being picky about eating a certain type of food or not", I think the world would be a much nicer placer to live in.

If that's the case, you'd hear Holy War, and think "In-N-Out" vs. "Five Guys", or "New York Style" vs" Chicago Deep Dish", and your prophets would write up the daily scripture in the 'Social/Living' section of the newspaper.

However, I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that maybe someone was overstating the importance of a given food to this religion, like most religious extremists do about anything associated with their religion.

Nattering Nabob:One of our neighbors was diagnosed with a "brain tumor", except it wasn't, it was pork tapeworms in his brain. Sleep tight!

STOP EATING PIGS FED WITH HUMAN shiat.

For god's sake, pork tapeworms should be going the way of the guinea worm at this point. Unlike trichinosis, the only carriers are humans and pigs, and the only ways the pigs can catch it is if they eat human waste.

There is no excuse for anyone in the modern world to be exposed to it.

Satan's Bunny Slippers:So the school/council got the product for free from the producers? How nice. And I see no mention of "taxpayers". Statements from the Federation of Muslim Organisations, and the Halal Monitoring Committee, none of which threaten legal action. Only states that there 'should be' legal action. No one has filed anything against anyone, just voiced their displeasure.

So, who's threatening legal action, and who did not pay for the product?

As I said before, these are publically financed schools, paid for the local council taxes (paid by Muslims and non-Muslims alike). Kinda like property taxes in the US paying for public schools. So everybody that pays the council taxes pays for the cafeteria food (you don't actually think the entire cost is defrayed by what is charged for lunches, do you?). The only reason they serve halal food at all is due to threats and complaints to the council by the Muslim community.

BKITU:SphericalTime: FTA: <i>Suleman Nagdi, from the Federation of Muslim Organisations, said: "For people, this is touching at the very tenet of their faith, the very heart of their faith. There needs to be a criminal procedure against the company," he said. "At least it would bring some confidence into the community."</i>

No, I think civil procedure would be just fine in this instance. Violating the tenets of a religion really doesn't strike me as ever being a criminal matter.

But mislabeling product is a crime in the UK. He's invoking the religious angle to show the consequences of the crime.

There is no religious consequence. At least not for Muslims. If they eat non-halal foods either because nothing else is present or when it is "contaminated" without the knowledge of the person eating it then it is not a breach of halal rules. The people buying the burgers didn't know they weren't actually halal so there will be no divine retribution.

zabadu:It just seems that quote seems to cover every evil transgression - not any particular. You forgot to wash your eating hand? Repent, amend and you are forgiven. All religions seem to have this out-clause. Jews- day of atonement. Catholics - confession. Oops, my bad. I repent. I am forgiven.

You seem to be confusing the concepts of atonement and forgiveness with actual atonement and forgiveness.

Cubicle Jockey:The only issue with eating apex predators nowadays is rhe problem of toxin concentrations, but this problem DID NOT EXIST YET when the religious dietary rules were being put in place.

Actually, part of the problem is that predators, even back then, tended to collect parasites. In addition, the prohibition against eating pork still makes sense - they're closer to humans physically, thus their diseases are more likely to cross(like the aforementioned parasites), but are still herd animals, as you put it, thus can transmit disease that way.

I'd actually be interested to see if that holds up as a legal argument. After all, doesn't the Tanya say that EVERYTHING can be elevated to the level of "religious ceremony"?

There is ceremony (or really, observance - "grace") at every meal, yeah, but it's kind of a stretch to call handwashing and birkat hamazon (grace before/after meals) a ceremony. Friday/Saturday/holiday meals are a different beast (because of the tradition to specifically have 3 meals, the pomp of kiddush, etc).

// do Muslims have b'dieved (accidental transgression) clauses?

Yeah, we do.Quran 6:54: "Peace be on you!Your Lord had inscribed for Himself (the rule of) Mercy.Verily if any of you did evil in ignorance,and thereafter repented and amended (his conduct),Lo! He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful."

Even murder?

Murder requires intent, and therfore can't be done "in ignorance."

Sure it can. I didn't know the gun was loaded, for one.

It just seems that quote seems to cover every evil transgression - not any particular. You forgot to wash your eating hand? Repent, amend and you are forgiven. All religions seem to have this out-clause. Jews- day of atonement. Catholics - confession. Oops, my bad. I repent. I am forgiven.

Yep.

Do you understand what it means to repent and amend? Or are you being deliberately inflammatory?

farkeruk:Suleman Nagdi, from the Federation of Muslim Organisations, said: "For people, this is touching at the very tenet of their faith, the very heart of their faith. There needs to be a criminal procedure against the company," he said. "At least it would bring some confidence into the community."

What I'd love to ask this guy is why a God cares about us eating pork? I can grasp the concept of a god that exists that judges our moral behaviour. You murder someone or fark your neighbour's wife, yeah, I can see how a god might see that as wrong, in a way that helping someone look for a lost dog isn't.

But what's wrong with pigs, as opposed to sheep or chickens? It's all a bit farking arbitrary for a superbeing, isn't it?

i can tell you know next to nothing about what you eat

it just comes in a wrapper and it's all good for you

pigs and chickens can be very disgusting animals if you don't control what they eat, not to mentiuon that pigs are prone to diseases and parasites

I'd actually be interested to see if that holds up as a legal argument. After all, doesn't the Tanya say that EVERYTHING can be elevated to the level of "religious ceremony"?

There is ceremony (or really, observance - "grace") at every meal, yeah, but it's kind of a stretch to call handwashing and birkat hamazon (grace before/after meals) a ceremony. Friday/Saturday/holiday meals are a different beast (because of the tradition to specifically have 3 meals, the pomp of kiddush, etc).

// do Muslims have b'dieved (accidental transgression) clauses?

Yeah, we do.Quran 6:54: "Peace be on you!Your Lord had inscribed for Himself (the rule of) Mercy.Verily if any of you did evil in ignorance,and thereafter repented and amended (his conduct),Lo! He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful."

Even murder?

Murder requires intent, and therfore can't be done "in ignorance."

Sure it can. I didn't know the gun was loaded, for one.

It just seems that quote seems to cover every evil transgression - not any particular. You forgot to wash your eating hand? Repent, amend and you are forgiven. All religions seem to have this out-clause. Jews- day of atonement. Catholics - confession. Oops, my bad. I repent. I am forgiven.

RottNDude:Ah yes, religious dietary restrictions, a tenet of yore that has absolutely no basis in the real world...

In fairness, the dietary restrictions were put there for a reason - at a time when it wasn't understood that if you simply cooked something, the parasites/etc get killed. The religious leaders did it for the good of their people at the time, they just don't make sense at a time when we can easily prepare things properly.

flondrix:give me doughnuts: And in response to the situation in the article: Fark 'em if they can't take a joke. If you want to keep kosher, or halal, bring your lunch from home.

Ditto for organic, vegan, gluten-free, unpasteurized, etc. etc.

Can an infidel kitchen even make halal food? Public schools can't do kosher and shouldn't even try--the past history of every implement and surface in the kitchen would be important, the re-koshering can only be done by an observant jew, and lastly, there's the whole hornet's nest of which kosher authorities different jews recognize. Far better to just say "The cafeteria is treyf" and be done with it. Is halal any better?

Use clean utensils and cook ware, and ensure no contamination between batches. That is about the extent of it. Treat the halal meat as if it were from a completely different animal, so ensure you wash the cook ware and don new gloves before handling it, and you should be good to go.

berylman:I am genuinely curious about the Muslim stance on Aardvark meat because I happening to be sitting on a lot of it and have few salable recourses. Some call it ground-pig.... whatever it is actually quite tasty pan fried..

farkeruk:So in which case, it might as well all be dumped, as these things hardly apply to 21st century society. We've solved the problems that God cared about through technology, therefore, God should have turned up and said "about the bacon? go right ahead now".

Oh, I'm not arguing that the dietary rules still belong, just pointing out that back in the days before science there were lots of reasons to ban pork.

Although, trichinosis, including brain eating worms, is still a problem in much of the world, due to poor sanitary conditions. There's actually been an increase in recent years due to people eating pork in Mexico while on vacation.

farkeruk:Nattering Nabob: There is a scientific basis. Clean meats are at the bottom of the food chain and don't carry as many diseases. Beef, lamb, goat, etc can be cooked to a much lower temp since they don't and have a MUCH lower risk of making people sick

But none of these religions forbid eating chicken, despite chicken carrying salmonella that is far more likely to make you sick than pork.

We have caused many disease problems. "Clean" fowl in the wild do not have the problems we do in raising mass quantities of edible(?) animals. Feeding chickens meat and mishandling them in the killing/ cleaning process cause the problems. Same with Mad Cow. They were feeding cows feed that included ground up cows including brains.

Dimensio:Tatsuma: Coming on a Bicycle: Why? Because they insult your invisible sky monster and the stuff he or she supposedly wrote up as a set of rules? Sure, it's a bit screwy of them, but they serve otherwise healthy food.

So it's alright to give product animals to vegans, because fark them and their stupid choices?

Very mature.

More generally, Coming on a Bicycle is stating that intentionally mislabeling food products is acceptable and should not be criminally prohibited.

No, it's not acceptable. It's - in this case - just not as bad as it seems. It's worthy of a fine, and a heavy one if a lot of profit was generated from it, but it's certainly not worthy of all the religious angst.

Tatsuma:Coming on a Bicycle: Why? Because they insult your invisible sky monster and the stuff he or she supposedly wrote up as a set of rules? Sure, it's a bit screwy of them, but they serve otherwise healthy food.

So it's alright to give product animals to vegans, because fark them and their stupid choices?

Very mature.

There's immature, and there's illegal, and there's your own qualifier of certain human beings as being 'the worst types of people'. So you tell me - what's the difference?

Tatsuma:Coming on a Bicycle: Why? Because they insult your invisible sky monster and the stuff he or she supposedly wrote up as a set of rules? Sure, it's a bit screwy of them, but they serve otherwise healthy food.

So it's alright to give product animals to vegans, because fark them and their stupid choices?

MooseUpNorth:farkeruk: But what's wrong with pigs, as opposed to sheep or chickens?

Short answer: http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/trichinellosis/ It's pretty obvious that the religious prohibitions came from someone or someones (more likely) who either didn't understand the need to cook meats all the way through and weren't arsed enough to do better than come up with a new superstition.

Lots of other reasons for people to have banned eating pig.- Pigs require a lot of water to raise, and for people living in the middle east and North Africa, clean freshwater was often hard to come by.- As you mentioned trichinellosis. Even if you don't eat the meat, the cysts from the worms will get into the water supply via pig feces, which leads to worms burrowing into your brain.- Its real easy for pig disease to spread from pig to human, and from birds to pigs. The flu of 1918 was originally a bird flu. They've traced its outbreak back to a military camp in France where pigs and chickens were kept close together. They believe the chickens got sick, the disease jumped from the chickens to the pigs, and from the pigs to soldiers heading home after fighting spreading the flu around the world. My hunch is people who kept pigs back then tended to get sick a lot more often than non-pig keepers. So while people might not have known about viruses, they could clearly see god liked to punish the pig keepers.

Tatsuma:We might understand many reasons for the various commandments that G-d gave us, but ultimately we do them because we were commanded to, not because it makes sense to our rational minds. Rational minds are limited and you can be led down the wrong path by following it, while by following G-d you will not go wrong.

That's the same argument used by honest creationists. Yes, they say, all the evidence looks as if the earth is billions of years old and evolution took place, but the book says it isn't and it didn't, so that's that.

Sick tag? Really? For some yummy pork getting into their lamb burgers? Did someone take a bite and yell, "Uck! This tastes like pork! I hate pork!"? No! They couldn't tell the difference and I bet they loved those burgers. I don't particularly care for the taste of lamb (a shall we say "down to earth" concern, no worries about only getting 71 virgins in magic happy place), but if it was in a hamburger and I couldn't tell the difference then no harm, no foul. Put lambs in there, sloths, carp, anchovies, orangutans, breakfast cereals, fruit bats, whatever. If there is no health risk and it tastes good then there is no problem. Just enjoy your burger.

No no no, let me explain. These "Halal" burgers must have come from Hungary, where the word "halal" means "death". Pork or no pork, they are just what their name implies, death burgers. Frankly, those kids are lucky if they are not dead yet.

Tatsuma:KiltedBastich: No real reason it couldn't be both. I could easily see a narrow-minded real 'Murican getting his jollies knowing he was boosting his bottom line and sticking it to the Mooslins at the same time.

... you know you're obsessed when you blame the Tea Party for something that happened in England.

Never ascribe to obsession that which can be explained by mere stupidity.

RottNDude:Ah yes, religious dietary restrictions, a tenet of yore that has absolutely no basis in the real world...

There is a scientific basis. Clean meats are at the bottom of the food chain and don't carry as many diseases. Beef, lamb, goat, etc can be cooked to a much lower temp since they don't and have a MUCH lower risk of making people sick

Diogenes:I may be totally off base here. But for some reform Jews I know it's more about fidelity to God's rules. They don't have to make sense or be practical.

I think there's a dude in the Old Testament who tried to steady the Arc of the Covenant so it wouldn't fall during transport. God smote him good, because you don't touch it. His intentions were good, but he still broke the rules.

Tats would know better.

It is said that Shlomo HaMelech (King Solomon) understood 300 different reasons for all the commandments in the Torah. Except for the Red Heifer, which just stumped him. In the end his conclusion was very simple:

We might understand many reasons for the various commandments that G-d gave us, but ultimately we do them because we were commanded to, not because it makes sense to our rational minds. Rational minds are limited and you can be led down the wrong path by following it, while by following G-d you will not go wrong.

KiltedBastich:No real reason it couldn't be both. I could easily see a narrow-minded real 'Murican getting his jollies knowing he was boosting his bottom line and sticking it to the Mooslins at the same time.

... you know you're obsessed when you blame the Tea Party for something that happened in England.

Notabunny:School lunches taught me that textured soy protein used as a filler in chili and hot dogs and hamburgers, etc. will cause me to go into anaphylactic shock. School lunches also taught me how to use an epipen. Good days. Good days.

SphericalTime:FTA: <i>Suleman Nagdi, from the Federation of Muslim Organisations, said: "For people, this is touching at the very tenet of their faith, the very heart of their faith. There needs to be a criminal procedure against the company," he said. "At least it would bring some confidence into the community."</i>

No, I think civil procedure would be just fine in this instance. Violating the tenets of a religion really doesn't strike me as ever being a criminal matter.

But mislabeling product is a crime in the UK. He's invoking the religious angle to show the consequences of the crime.

nekom:It's a worldwide problem, and it makes you wonder what ELSE is in there. Horse meat and pork may have religious or social meaning to some, but as far as a health concern meat is meat. Neither horse nor pork will kill you. But if you aren't getting exactly what's advertised, it raises SERIOUS questions about the food supply chain in the world.

If you want to make sure that the meat you are buying is 100% beef or something similar, you just need to find a butcher that sells meat under reputable Kosher supervision. No way you will be getting horse or pork or anything like that.